Our Voice: It's decision time for Flint to proceed with new Karegnondi water pipeline

Fish or cut bait, city of Flint, on a decision to go ahead with construction of a new pipeline that’ll cut customer costs and sever Detroit’s stranglehold on this area’s water supply.

City Council’s choice to sign onto the Karegnondi Water Authority project should be obvious after it received a Rowe Professional Services Co. report this month on the costs of several water supply options for the city.

In the long run, the most cost-effective option for the city would be to finance and build the pipeline with Genesee County, Lapeer County, the city of Lapeer and Sanilac County, the report concluded.

The second-cheapest option under consideration, upgrading the Flint Water Treatment Plant for full-time supply of the city’s water, wouldn’t be as cost-effective, the report said. It’s more expensive to treat Flint River water than to get cleaner Lake Huron water from a pipeline ready for human consumption.

The third option and most costly route for Flint and its customers in the city and around the county would be to continue buying treated water from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, the report said. That conclusion was underlined recently when the city of Flint decided to pass along to city customers 35 percent water and sewer rate increases, largely an accumulation of Detroit rate hikes that the city can no longer absorb for its residents and businesses.

Flint’s final decision to OK the pipeline construction is crucial to the future of the Karegnondi pipeline and its partners. The city would carry a large portion of the project’s expense — about $174 million out of a 2009 total water project cost estimate of $600 million.

Customer water bills would pay for the project. They would rise a bit over time — less than they would soar if Detroit kept raising its rates in the years to come — but fall astoundingly once the debt is paid off.

Big numbers, for sure. But for big savings in water costs down the line.

Karegnondi Water Authority estimates that its partners would save $200 million in water costs even as they paid off the bonds over the next 25 years that would be needed to fund the project. After the bonds are repaid, the cost of water would drop to a quarter of what it might be if Flint and the other Karegnondi partners had remained Detroit water customers.

As icing on the cake while this proposal has been cooking for the past several years is that other Detroit water customers, such as those in the Motown suburbs, are agitating for some shared control of a water system that Detroit has operated as a regional monopoly.

Perhaps not coincidentally, then, Genesee County Drain Commissioner Jeff Wright at a Sept. 7 Flint City Council meeting told council members that Detroit officials said they would consider selling a portion of their pipeline to Karegnondi. That would cut about $40 million from the $300 million construction cost of just the pipeline, Wright said.

The facts are in, the alternatives studied and the conclusion is obvious.

Flint should sign the agreement for Karegnondi to proceed with a new pipeline from Lake Huron to Genesee County.

Wright said the decision needs to come in the next few weeks so that engineering work can prepare for construction to begin with the spring thaw next year.

This isn’t so much a pushy rush order as it is a request for Flint city officials to finally make up their minds.

The time for study, and for more hemming and hawing, is over.

The city of Flint should vote to sever its watery ties with Detroit and get its water through a pipeline and water treatment system that it’ll own — for some customer cost savings in the years it’ll take to pay for the work, and a tremendous cut in water costs when that debt is done.

Fish or cut bait Flint, then jump all-in, with the Karegnondi pipeline plan.